Something was different. Everything was the same, yet something was different. The room was more cold, the air more stifling, the loneliness more pronounced. She couldn't quite put her finger on it; all she knew was that nothing was the same since she got back from the hospital. The clock on her microwave read 5:30 and she sighed. It had been at least ten hours since she last touched a bite of food and yet she wasn't hungry.
Her strength just seemed to be gone though she suspected it was partially from the sleeping pills she took a couple minutes ago. Jordan brushed a piece of stray hair behind her ear and sat heavily down on her couch, tapping her fingers impatiently against the armrest. The sound of her radio was lulling her eyes closed, music calling her to sleep. She tried to fight it, tried to push it away. But the calming noise of the slow song and the sound of the running tap from her bathtub were too much to fight and she collapsed deeper into the couch, eyes closed with sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXHe pounded his fist on the red door, calling her name continuously. But there was no reply.
"Come on Jordan it's me!" Woody called from the other side of the door, his voice pleading. "Jordan Garret told me you were here and I can hear the tap running! Open the door!" He was getting impatient now. Not to mention a little frightened. Whenever he had gone over to her apartment before and she didn't want to see him she always just called back through the door. But this time there was no reply whatsoever. He was concerned. Extremely.
"Please Jordan!" He called one last time, promising himself that if she didn't answer he would break down the door.
Nothing.
He took a couple steps back, prepared to go running into the door. He took one running stop forward but stopped abruptly when a light bulb went off in his head. He reached for his set of keys which were buried deep in his pocket, extracting them from his jeans and flipping through them to find the right one.
Woody looked at it momentarily, wondering whether just breaking down the door would have been simpler. If Jordan was ok and was simply ignoring him, then he would have to go into the explanation of why he had a key to her apartment. And he really didn't want to go there. Not tonight. Right now he simply wanted to make sure that she was ok. The fact that Lily was so concerned about her made him worry. But then again Lily was always worried about Jordan. Who wasn't? The girl had issues.
Shrugging off the consequences of his actions and deciding he would deal with them if they came up, Woody inserted the key into the lock and twisted, turning the knob and swinging the door inward. He glanced around the room, noticing that it wasn't all that different from the last time he had been there.
Dishes were scattered around the kitchen, filling up the sink and most of the counter-space. Blanket that he assumed Kayla was using were piled in a corner and finally, his eyes came upon Jordan's figure curled up on the couch. Woody sighed a sigh of relief and swung the door shut behind him, crossing the threshold and walking over to the couch, bending down beside the couch and staring at her with a smile on his face.
Her curly hair was splayed across her face haphazardly; ringlet's covering her dark, closed eyes. She was curled up on her side, knees pulled up to her chest. Woody brushed the stray pieces of hair from out of her face and smiled again. She looked so peaceful. It was then that the sound of running water was brought back to Woody's attention and he stood abruptly, looking wildly around for the source of the noise.
He followed it through Jordan's bedroom to the bathroom and stepped cautiously in, foot immediately plunging into a puddle of water.
"Ugggg…" he said, shaking off his foot and reaching over to the overflowing bathtub to turn off the taps. With a sigh, he pushed his hand into the semi-warm water and pulled the plug, the water immediately beginning to spiral as it wound it's way down the drain. Finding a couple of towels in the linen closet, Woody placed them gingerly down on the floor, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to clean the soaking floor, and stepped down, allowing the towels to soak up as much liquid as they would allow.
Satisfied enough with his cleaning job, Woody left the bathroom and walked into Jordan's kitchen, looking around in dismay. He knew that she had spent a couple of days in the hospital and the day he had gone to visit her she had just been released. He knew that he should have gone and seen her earlier, but he just couldn't bring himself to face her. He knew that he had betrayed her.
Something orange buried under a three day old newspaper caught his eye and he lifted the newspaper away, picking up the pill bottle from the counter. He twisted it in circles, attempting to find the part of the label that said what it was for.
"Sleeping Pills. Prescribed for emotion distress. Take one every night half and hour before sleep. Take no more than three a day," the bottle read.
Emotional distress? Woody knew that Jordan had issues; he just didn't know that emotional distress was one of them, or that she had sought help for it. The bottles dates said that she picked it up yesterday so Woody unscrewed the cap and peered inside.
It looked as though no more than three or four could have been missing and he sighed with relief. Three was the maximum that a person could take in a day but Woody knew that was just for safety issues, that you could safely take four without causing serious bodily harm, it just wasn't recommended. And that was assuming that Jordan had even taken that many.
He mentally told himself to shut up and closed the bottle, walking back over to the couch and bending down beside her. Her chest was lightly rising and falling with each breath she took and Woody felt slightly better. At least she was breathing.
He brushed more pieces of hair from her eyes and tucked them behind her ear, watching as she stirred slightly in her sleep and her eyes started to flutter open. She squinted, hard, before fully opening her eyes and sitting up, a confused look on her face.
"Woody," she said sleepily, running a hand over her tired eyes. "How did you get in here?" She sounded mildly upset and Woody knelt a little farther back.
"Door was unlocked," he lied. Jordan gave him a look that stated that she knew he was lying but didn't say anything more about it and he didn't press the issue. "Are you ok? You were out cold when I got here." His tone was concern, genuinely caring.
"Ohmigod the bath!" Jordan exclaimed, jumping up from the couch and starting to run to the bathroom.
But Woody had jumped up just as fast as her and grabbed her arm as she ran. "Jordan, Jordan, Jordan," he said in a huff as she struggled against him.
"Let go of me Woody!" she yelled, still trying to tug her arm away. But he was stronger. "Woody let me go!" Her tone was deadly serious and Woody became confused.
He didn't understand. Just a second ago she was fine. And now she was trying to wrangle her arm out of his grasp as if he was going to kill her. "Jordan I already turned to tub off!" But his words seemed to just bounce off her and she tried even harder to pull away.
"I have to go turn the bath of Woody!" She was screaming now and he could see the tears starting to make their way down her cheeks. So he held a little tighter, trying to pull her into his arms.
"Hey, hey, hey! Jordan come on!"
"No Woody, no! LET ME GO!" she cried desperately.
"JORDAN! But she still was paying no attention, trying to get away from him. But he could see that her strength was wavering and he was going to win eventually.
"The bath …" she sobbed. It was then that her strength gave out and she started to fall but Woody was quicker than that. He reached out and pulled her little weight into him, holding her frail, trembling body to his chest.
He knew then that it wasn't about the bath. It was never about the bath. He just didn't know what it was. He pulled her a little closer, her head resting against his shoulder, tears soaking his shirt.
"Shhh," he cooed, trying to comfort her body-raking sobs. "It's ok Jordan. It's ok. Everything's ok Jor. It's alright."
His words seemed to be working because she relaxed a little in his arms, her weigh becoming limp as she stopped fighting him and leaned against him instead. Jordan's breathing became a little easier and her survival instinct less pronounced as she really let herself need someone for the first time.
Woody hugged her a little tighter as he felt her arms loop loosely over his shoulder and clasp behind his neck. This was the first time he could ever remember Jordan allowing herself to need him; or anyone for that matter.
She sniffled a little and Woody brought his head up to her head, running his fingers through her tangle of dark curls and wondering to himself, why he ever found comfort with Lu.
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Ok so we're leaning a little more towards a Woody/Jordan story now! YAY! So there you have it.
Oh and in the interest of not getting sued : I'M NOT A DOCTOR! Everything I said about sleeping pills was completely made up so don't take what I said literally. Lol. Ok so that's all for now.
Enjoy and don't forget to R&R
Love, Megan
